My favourite example of this is one from Soviet-era Russia! It concerns the
two main newspapers, Pravda ('The Truth') and Izvestia ('The News'). There
was a popular saying which, translated into English, read "There's no news
in 'The Truth', and no truth in 'The News'."

From: Kwan Hoong Ng (dwlngATtm.net.my)
Subject: antanaclasis

Recently I visited Singapore and came across this saying in T-shirts,
posters, souvenirs; "Singapore is a fine city, she is also a city of fine".
Singapore is noted for fining due to offenses such as littering, crossing
roads not following proper paths, graffiting, importing chewing gums, etc.

I'd like to offer another example of antanaclasis. At Harvard Medical School,
all students read the words of Dr. Francis Peabody as follows: "The secret of
the care of the patient is in caring for the patient."

From: Teresa Stanley (romaphile1ATcs.com)
Subject: re: antiphrasis

Does Marc Antony's speech qualify?
"But Brutus is an honourable man...and so are they all, all honourable men"

The current note on paralepsis does not give the full force of this figure.
Better definitions I have seen suggest that a passing by omission, leaving on
one side, or passing by, results in a rhetorical figure in which the speaker
emphasizes something by affecting to pass it by without notice, usually by
such phrases as "not to mention", "to say nothing of". The OED gives "I doe
not say thou receaved brybes of thy fellowes, I busy myslf not in this
thing." As he says he speaks not of it, he speaks of it. One sees this in
political discourse almost daily: "I won't comment on my opponent's notorious
lack of integrity" and the like.

I always liked Samuel Johnson's definition this word (from 'Dictionary of the
English Language', 1755). He glosses it as 'the violent yoking together of
heterogeneous elements'. Strangely enough, this is the second time that your
posting has brought this definition to mind. The first was with the etymology
of the word syzygy. I recall that we've had bovine on the list recently as
well. Are you following a latent theme of words concerning cattle?

From: delilawyerATaol.com
Subject: oxymoron

Yesterday I heard on the radio that the guy who shot seven people was on a
"methodical rampage". Oxymoron? I think so.

What a lovely garden friends have provided... The verses, mostly familiar and
beautiful, continue to move and delight me. Michelle asked about setting
poetry to music I used to teach a singing method by Justine Ward--actually
we taught it in every grade in our elementary schools--in which the most
sublime music was sung to great poetry. "She Walks, the Lady of My Delight,"
"Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright," sparkling little pieces from Arcangelo
Corelli, Orlando di Lasso, Mozart... My mind is full of them still. The only
bad day I had was when I tried to get the 7th grade boys to sing "Where the
Bee Sucks, there suck I...in a cowslip's bell I lie." We never could get
through it without cracking up.

From: William R. Bunge (bunge2ATgdinet.com)
Subject: Chad

Did you know that there is a St. Chad, and several churches named in his honor?

On this new year's eve I wonder why we do not say twenty oh one or something
similar as that was the tradition of expressing the year in the first
millennium, I do believe. Even in the 1000's it was ten sixty six I believe.
But I seem to be hearing two thousand and one. Even two thousand one would be
more like it for this world of sound bites! "And" puts us back into the
Victorian era I believe!

Happy New Year with good words for the new year!

From: Roy Foster (sent via snailmail)

As a fellow logophile, I found the Smithsonian article about AWAD most
interesting. Unfortunately, I am unable to join the ranks of the AWADdicts
since I am not computerized.

An addition to your collection of mondegreens might be Ed McBain murder
mystery titled "Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear." "Eschew obfuscation is one of
my favorite admonishments a la IBM's now all-too-familiar "Think!" inasmuch
as it does exactly what it instructs one not to do. Others in my collection,
self-coined, are "Abjure supererogation," "Vilipend ipsedixitism," and
"Oppugn hyperpolysyllabicsesquipedalianism."

When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.
-Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) [Through the Looking Glass]